


7 Days In Montana

by stillwaters01



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark, Episode: s07e03 The Girl Next Door, Gen, Hallucifer, Hallucinations, Missing Scene, Recovery and Readjustment, Strength in Brotherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 22:32:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillwaters01/pseuds/stillwaters01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>7x03 missing scene.  For the first three days, the cabin was quiet.  Then Sam woke up.  Screaming.  </p>
<p>(Originally published 10/27/11)</p>
            </blockquote>





	7 Days In Montana

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
> 
> Written: 10/22/11 – 10/27/11
> 
> Notes: This piece takes place during the first week at the cabin in 7x03. I always wondered what happened during that time, and wanted to explore what I imagine must have been a difficult period of injury, reflection, and finding a new equilibrium. With Dean’s suicidal voicemail to Bobby in 7x02 and the pain pills and alcohol in the cabin, and Sam’s head injury, which had to mess with the hell-shattered mind we saw in 7x02, I could see the boys struggling during that first week, trying to find a new understanding and rhythm. This is my humble attempt at that experience. Dialogue paraphrased from 7x02 does not belong to me. A direct quote from Lucifer in that episode is presented in full italics. ‘Ricardo’ is the character that committed suicide on the Spanish soap opera Dean is watching in the first 7x03 scene at the cabin. I don’t know if it’s a real show or not, so the story lines and other characters I’ve created here come from my own mind. As always, I hope I did the characters and emotions justice. Thank you for reading. I truly appreciate your support.

 

 

For the first three days, the cabin was quiet. 

 

Dean alternated between sleeping and watching Sam through a Percocet and alcohol induced haze, and Sam was unconscious – unmoving except for the occasional seizure that elicited soft grunts as it tightened his airway and led to long seconds Dean muddily counted, waiting to see if _that_ would be the time Sam wouldn’t start breathing again.  Maybe he was too medicated, or too brokenly exhausted, but Dean got it.  Sam likely had major brain damage, and while safe from Leviathan General, he was now a neurosurgery case in the middle of abso-frigging-lutely nowhere.  He probably wouldn’t _ever_ wake up – the swelling would eventually cut off his basic functions and he’d just slip away - from this never-ending post-apocalyptic mess, hell’s shattered walls, Lucifer’s grasp…..and a brother at the end of his road.  So Dean sat there watching his brother die, surrounded by empty bottles trying to numb the guilt at the fact that, not only did he _get_ it, but that, maybe, he was actually sort of _okay_ with it.

 

Because it meant that he could follow.

 

But then the fourth day came.

 

Sam woke up.

 

And _nothing_ was okay.

 

Because Sam woke up screaming.  Raw, inconsolable, body ready to snap, depths of unimaginable terror screaming – a sound even Alastair hadn’t been able to create when he forced Dean to listen to the screams of thousands of victims with Sam’s voice.  Sam was completely incoherent, unreachable, screaming through a failing throat for a full five minutes, each agonizing second counted by a shaking Dean, until Sam finally went limp and unresponsive.  And Dean realized, as his muscles gave way and his breathing stuttered, that of _course_ they wouldn’t be that lucky, for Sam to slip away from increased intracranial pressure, or brain frying seizures.  Not even a Leviathan strengthened blow to the head would be that kind to them.  No, Sam would survive long enough for the worst case scenario of the wall’s destruction to come to fruition – to be living, breathing, and _gone_ \- locked in some muddled, terrifying, psychotic mess, tortured and bled by shards of his own psyche, unable to even recognize the brother whose limitless reach had finally hit its end.. 

 

And they thought they had survived hell. 

 

Dean covered a sob with two pain pills and half a beer and watched Sam’s motionless form from the couch, wondering if it would be cruel to wait until the cast came off before finishing what the Leviathans started.

 

***

 

On the fifth day, Sam woke up with a jarring silence and wary stare – unseeing except for the occasionally tracked movement that neither Dean nor Bobby had made.  There was no talking, the only flicker of response a silent trifecta so much worse than the previous day’s incoherent agony, because it wordlessly confirmed Lucifer’s presence.  That quiet wide-eyed fear, rapid breathing, and full body flinch showed a Sam in primal terror – something Dean had never seen in his brother in a lifetime of facing the rest of the world’s worst nightmares.  Something they hadn’t even seen when facing each _other’s_ worst nightmares.  Dean tried, despite the weary little internal voice that told him it was hopeless, to do _something_.  Offered Sam words, touch, fluids, meds.  But Sam was gone and Dean didn’t exist through Lucifer’s insidious, all-consuming presence. 

 

Because when Sam’s eyes _did_ focus, it was only to precede a flinch. 

 

Dean took another two pills with a full bottle of beer as he searched for his little brother in those once familiar eyes.  And wondered when Bobby’d be able to get the Impala back. 

 

Because it had to be the three of them.

 

***

 

On the sixth day, Dean woke to the feeling of being watched.  He sat up slowly, looking down to the mattress on the floor to see Sam lying on his left side, throat working rapidly, wide eyes rooted on Dean’s chest.  Then came the flinch, eyes closing briefly before forcing themselves open and staring at Dean with a renewed, uncomprehending despair….before shifting ever so slightly into something so achingly _Sam_ \- the perceptive researcher working something out.  Dean latched onto that ripple and stayed perfectly still. 

 

“Dean?” the rusty voice cracked, timid, childlike over worn features torn between relentless fear and lifeless resignation.

 

“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean croaked.

 

Sam tilted his head slightly, grimacing at the movement, openly forcing himself to watch Dean’s chest.  “Do you….” He swallowed roughly.  “Is there…..”

 

Dean carefully brought his hands up to where Sam’s eyes were.  “Sam, what do you see?”

 

Sam flinched again, eyes shifting to a point behind Dean, before going forcefully, reluctantly back to Dean’s chest.  “A poker,” he whispered.

 

“Like a fireplace poker?” Dean clarified, trying to keep the heartbreak from his voice at this new ‘all hell all the time via traumatic brain injury’ version of his brother.

 

Sam nodded miserably.

 

“Through my chest?”

 

Another nod.  “Arterial spray.  Bright red.  Aorta probably,” Sam rattled off the facts in a long-practiced, despairing monotone before rallying slightly.  “I _know_ you shouldn’t be talking with an injury like that, but…..” he tilted his head again with a groan, “….but it’s _there_ ,” his voice broke, as fear of the injury being real warred with fear of subconsciously knowing that it _wasn’t_.  The realization slowly dawned as he dragged his eyes upward to the truth on Dean’s face.  “It’s not there,” he answered his own question quietly.

 

“No, Sammy,” Dean’s voice caught roughly.

 

“Okay,” Sam nodded, swallowing shakily.  He tried for a relieved smile, but it twisted into a pained, frightened wince. 

 

Waiting for it all to come crashing down again.

 

Dean glanced at the I.V. supplies on the kitchen counter.  Bobby had used the I.V. access established by the paramedics to start Sam on fluids when they first got to the cabin, but that line had been ripped out during Sam’s screaming crash toward consciousness two days ago and Dean had been too afraid to try and put it back in with Sam’s current mental state.  So he tried again to get his brother to take something.  But Sam closed his eyes, the shake of the head refusing fluids or pain meds a fractured sob. 

 

Dean took pills enough for both of them, dropped the newly opened beer bottle to the floor after one sip, and swiped at burning eyes with hands he swore were wet with condensation. 

 

The sound he made was just the pills getting caught in his throat.

 

***

 

In the final hours of that sixth night, Dean woke to find Sam sitting at a small table in the corner, field stripping his weapon.  Again.  Not exactly how he wanted to see Sam up, but it was something.  He watched the precise, fluid, _desperate_ movements silently until Sam stumbled, swatting at the cleaning cloth as it got stuck on his bandaged hand. 

 

“Hey,” Dean said quietly.

 

Sam stiffened, his hands still moving.

 

Dean pulled himself up with a groan, grabbed his crutches on the second try, and hobbled over to Sam’s side, slowly sinking into the other chair, studying Sam closely.  He cringed at the sharp lines of pain in Sam’s face, the narrowed eyes even in the dim light.  “Dude, would you _please_ take something?  My head hurts just _looking_ at you.”

 

Sam shook his head sharply, inhaling roughly as he swayed.

 

Dean took a breath to press him, but stopped as some of the tension seemed to actually _ease_ with that obviously painful action.  “Okay,” he breathed, thinking.  “How about just the water then?” he tried hopefully.

 

Sam shook his head again.

 

“C’mon man, you haven’t had anything in days – you gotta at least drink something or Bobby’s gonna end up having to put that I.V. back in,” Dean’s eyes darted to the counter.

 

Sam’s face scrunched.  “I.V.?” he asked, voice going distant as he looked past Dean as if, in the space of his response, he had honestly forgotten what an I.V. actually _was_.

 

Dean looked at him nervously.  “Yeah, you know, needle in the arm for fl…”

 

Sam fell out of his chair as he suddenly scrambled back from Dean with a strangled, incoherent cry.

 

Bobby rushed in.  “What happened?” he asked breathlessly, staring at Sam hunched on the floor, knees to his heaving chest, face buried into clenched fists.

 

Dean waved Bobby quiet.  “Whoa, Sam, you’re okay.  It’s just me,” he promised shakily, holding his hands up, nonthreatening.

 

Sam kept his eyes covered as he dropped his face to his knees, voice muffled defeat as he pleaded, “Please, stop.  Just….stop.  Be someone else.  _Any_ one else,” he choked back a sob.  “Just….not him.”

 

Dean closed his eyes, trying desperately to compose himself through the resultant flood of heartbreaking rage.  “Sam, listen to me.  That sonuvabitch is _not_ me.  He doesn’t _get_ to _be_ me, you understand?”

 

Sam’s breath hitched as he rocked forward against his tangled lower legs.

 

“Sam!” Dean barked.  “Look at me!”

 

Sam reluctantly obeyed, digging his knuckles into his temples as he lifted his head.  He cringed as he opened his eyes, shook his head as if to clear it, blinked, then looked all the way up - where he promptly dropped his hands and shot to his feet with a nervous, breathy, “I’m sorry.” 

 

Bobby stepped forward as Sam swayed, but watched Dean for the cue to intervene any further.

 

“I…sorry,” Sam repeated, eyes downcast, cringing in a soul-crushing combination of embarrassment, guilt, and frightened, expectant punishment.

 

“It’s okay, Sam,” Dean promised, tone low and soothing.  He gestured down toward Sam’s line of sight.  “You wanna sit?” he motioned at the chair.

 

Sam folded into the seat, breathing ragged.  He nervously looked up at Dean, wild hair obscuring his face.  

 

Dean took an unsteady breath.  “What do you see?” he asked, striving for calm, reorienting communication.

 

Sam hunched in on himself, the trembling, bandaged hand swiping hair from his eyes.  “You,” he said shakily.  “I mean, it was…..him….. _as_ you…. _in_ you…..” he struggled with the semantics, “but now it’s you.  Dean.” He nodded firmly on his brother’s name, still partially trying to convince himself.  He dropped the injured hand down to his thigh, pulling it back with annoyance as the gauze caught on frayed denim.

 

“Damn right it’s me,” Dean growled protectively.  He leaned forward slowly, watching Sam press the bandaged hand against his jeans.  “You know, those stitches are about ready to come out – could get rid of that bandage,” he offered.

 

Sam twisted the hand nervously, watching a point beyond Dean’s right shoulder.

 

Dean looked over his shoulder, then slowly back to Sam….and suddenly felt like the world’s worst excuse for a brother.  Maybe it was the meds and the booze, or a combination of pain, exhaustion, worry, and just plain stupidity, but he finally _got_ it – brought himself back to the warehouse, to rerouting Sam’s sense of reality.  To ‘stone number one’ – believing Dean and…..pain.  What their lives always came down to one way or another.  He softened.  “Hey, just ‘cause the stitches come out doesn’t mean it still won’t hurt like a bitch as it keeps healing,” he said quietly.

 

Sam squinted, pressing on the fraying bandage as he stared beyond Dean again for several seconds, before dropping the hand to his lap with a skittish nod.

 

“Okay,” Dean let out a breath, taking the unexpected non-negative response for the gift it was.  “Why don’t we move this party to the couch, huh?”  Sam slowly followed him to the sofa, watching blankly as Dean adjusted his casted leg up on the coffee table, before perching on the edge of the couch cushion at Dean’s gesture to sit.  Once settled, Dean reached for the hand, stifling his own jump as Sam jerked with the touch, waiting until Sam’s breathing got back under control before easing the bandage off.  Dean took the suture removal kit from Bobby with a silent nod and began gently snipping the sutures free.  “It works,” he stated softly after the removal of the first three threads.

 

Sam frowned, trying to figure out what his fractured mind had missed.  “What?” he asked apologetically.

 

“Pain,” Dean clarified simply, with resigned experience.  “It’s….grounding you.  Sending Lucifer packing.  Something.”  He glanced up at Sam.

 

Sam ducked his eyes.  “You were right,” he confirmed, suddenly sounding like _Sam_ again for the first time since….well, since the wall came down. “It _does_ feel different.  And it….I don’t know…” he shook his head, overwhelmed.  “…It makes him disappear sometimes.  He kinda…..fizzes out.  Like a bad hologram,” he scoffed at the description.

 

Dean perked up.  “Hologram?”

 

Sam sighed.  “Dude, seriously?  _Another_ Star Trek reference?”

 

Dean grinned.  “You really wanna knock Star Trek while I’ve got scissors in my hand?” he asked, holding them up with a pointed wave as he shifted the hemostat to the next knot.

 

“ _Suture_ scissors,” Sam stressed, rolling his eyes.  “Not much of a threat.”

 

“Whatever,” Dean muttered, allowing himself to relax into the brief oasis of normalcy before dropping his voice, serious again.  “So, that’s why the whole ‘no pain meds’ thing.”

 

Sam dropped his head, ashamed.  “The hand’s healing up and so…. yeah, my head hurts like hell, but……”

 

“But you need it,” Dean understood.

 

“Yeah,” Sam blew out a breath.  “It’s the only thing I’ve got, Dean.  I mean, it doesn’t even work all the time, but it’s _something_ and I can’t……” he swallowed roughly.

 

“Okay,” Dean said softly.

 

“Okay?” Sam echoed, squinting down at the hand lingering over the last stitch.

 

“Yeah, okay.  For now,” Dean clarified, snipping the last suture and pulling it out.  “But you gotta talk to me, man.  We got no shot at figuring something else out if you keep dealing with him alone.  Okay?”

 

Sam nodded, eyes drifting to the TV Dean had forgotten was even on.

 

Dean frowned, giving him a moment before moving forward.  “All right, you think you can handle some Gatorade?  Just a sip or two?”

 

“Who did she sleep with?” Sam asked.

 

Dean followed Sam’s eyes to the screen, seeing a commercial for the Spanish soap opera Bobby had gotten Dean hooked on.  “What?” he asked dumbly, trying to bury the uneasiness at Sam’s uncharacteristic depth of distraction.

 

“She told Ricardo the baby wasn’t his, so who?” Sam pressed.

 

Dean cocked his head.  “Sam, it’s called a preview for a reason,” he pointed out.

 

“Right,” Sam cringed, his brain visibly working to sort itself out. 

 

Dean watched him for a moment.  “So….Gatorade?” he tried again.

 

“Uh, yeah, okay,” Sam agreed, meeting his eyes nervously.

 

Dean nodded, running the colors through his head.  Bloody fruit punch, orange hellfire, ‘cool blue’ cyanotic death….  “Hey Bobby?  Could you grab Sam one of those lemon Gatorades?” he settled on a safe flavor.    

 

“Sure thing,” Bobby replied from his silent watch post in the kitchen.  He crossed the room, handing the bottle to Dean first, and then, with Dean’s nod, headed back to bed.  Dean passed the bottle to Sam before raising his own beer in a silent toast.  Sam mirrored the action, then dropped the bottle to his lap, focused on the TV.  Dean frowned.  He snagged the bottle, twisted the cap off, and handed it back to Sam as he pointedly raised his own open bottle to his lips.

 

Sam nodded distractedly and took a tentative sip of the yellow liquid as his eyes darted back to the commercials.

 

Dean only took one pill as he watched his brother and began to think.

 

***

 

On the seventh day, Sam woke up with the raw, ragged struggle for air that Dean eerily recognized as someone trying to asphyxiate his brother.  Sam had bolted upright before he could really breathe, and then regressed to spending the rest of the morning alternating between the wary, silent watching and the disturbingly focused necessity of disassembling and reassembling his weapon.  Judging by the frequency of flinches and complete lack of communication, Sam was too far gone, his only option too far out of reach.  So Dean brought out a new option.  One with which he was intimately familiar and experienced.

 

Distraction.

 

“Dude, you know more Spanish than I do – get over here,” he called out to Sam, infusing his voice with all the normalcy of a Sunday motel room morning, as the soap opera’s theme song began playing.

 

Sam’s shoulders tensed.  He laid the weapon down with obvious distress before going still.

 

“C’mon man, now’s your chance to know who the real father is.  I only get every couple of words – between the two of us, we might understand like fifty percent of this thing,” Dean wheedled.

 

Sam stood up slowly and turned sluggishly toward the couch.  Dean felt a sudden surge of pride in Sam for finding, hell for still even _having_ , that stubborn, optimistic core, that hope to fight for his brother’s words.  Pride that promptly dropped into churning nausea as Sam froze, eyes widening, hunching inwardly in an unconsciously desperate attempt to make himself a smaller target.  “Dean….” he choked.

 

It said something about how badly they needed something positive in their lives right now that Dean felt a wave of gratitude at Sam’s fearful vocalization - because it meant that Sam remembered last night’s conversation; found his voice so he wouldn’t have to fight alone.

 

Dean sat up straighter, on task.  “Where?” he demanded.

 

“Right in front of me,” Sam flinched, his eyes cast down and to the left of the empty space, tracking some hypnotically rhythmic movement with haunted experience.

 

“Ignore him,” Dean said simply, fighting to keep his voice steady as if he were talking about any other asshole, not the Devil himself.  “Act like you don’t even see him.  Just walk right by, Sam.  Right to me.”

 

Sam swallowed, took a shaky breath, and met Lucifer’s eyes. 

 

Lucifer stepped back, arms spread wide with an offended huff.  “Like you don’t even _see_ me?  Kind of hard not to see what’s right in front of you, huh Sammy?” He paused, thoughtful for a split second before shrugging.  “Well, unless we do _this_ ,” he thrust the poker through Sam’s left eye. 

 

Sam dropped to the ground with a guttural scream, one shaking hand attempting to stem the blood from the front as the other clumsily reached back to where the iron had punctured through the back of his skull.

 

“Wasting time there, kiddo,” Lucifer rocked on his heels.  “Staring at the floor before I take the other one,” he tsk’d, voice sweetening, “which you know I’m going to do.  Again,” he sing-songed, pulling the poker out slowly and tapping it on the floor in a millennia-honed song.

 

Sam gasped, gagging on the pain as he struggled to his knees at Dean’s sharp, “Sam!”  He forced himself to focus his uncovered right eye, to find Dean’s panicked face sticking up over the couch.

 

“Dean, he…..” Sam choked.

 

“Dean, he….” Lucifer mocked, pitching his voice higher before lowering it to soft, silky disgust.  “Really, Sam?  All those _warm_ nights we spent together, and _Dean_ is the last one you want to see?”  He sighed, disappointed, before shrugging and lifting the poker as Sam struggled against the desperate sounds caught in the back of his throat.  “Still want to keep going, Sammy?  I mean, I’m having a _great_ time, I really am.  But remember, bunk buddy,” the voice darkened, an icy undercurrent of hellfire, as he languidly gazed over his shoulder to Dean, tapping the poker up Sam’s inner leg to punctuate each word.  “I.  Don’t.  Share.”

 

“Sam!” Dean’s frantic voice pushed through, crutches in hand, even as he was afraid to move and make things worse.  “Sammy, listen to me.  Whatever he’s doing to you right now, it’s not real.  ‘Stone number one’ man, remember?  You gotta believe me.  _I’m_ real.  _You’re_ real and….and _whole_ ,” Dean choked on the laughable wrongness of that word outside its immediate physical connotation.  He swallowed desperately, rallying his fear into sheer anger.  “And dammit, I am _done_ sharing my brother with the freaking Devil.  Now, you _know_ what to do.  So you tell that sonuvabitch he is _not_ invited and you kick his sorry ass out of here!” he shouted.

 

Sam jumped as Dean’s words rose above the fear, the incoherent agony in his head, the great, gasping breaths for air.

 

“Go ahead, Sammy.  ‘Kick my sorry ass,’” Lucifer urged mockingly.  “Dean’s right, after all.  You _do_ know what to do….” he smiled as he twisted Dean’s meaning, eyes moving over Sam’s head to the disassembled weapon on the table.

 

Sam’s weapon.  The one Dean took from him in the warehouse when his brother shared his own, personal hell to help pull Sam from _his_.

 

Stone.  Number.  One.

 

Sam pulled the injured hand from his eye and ground the healing tissue into his crowbar-split head with a defiant gasp.

 

Lucifer flickered.  “Band-Aids, Sammy,” he chastised the action.  “You can only plug the leak for so long.  Eventually, the levee _will_ break.”  He glanced beyond Dean, to the TV.  “Enjoy the show,” he grinned, dropping his voice to a knowing whisper as he winked back down at Sam. “Pay attention to Ricardo.  You could learn something from him in a few episodes.” 

 

Sam sagged as his eyes adjusted to blessedly empty space, breathing heavily, swallowing back bile as his head threatened to explode.

 

“Sammy?” Dean asked breathlessly.

 

“He’s gone,” Sam said roughly, staggering to his feet.  Dean cursed his casted leg as Sam stumbled to the couch and sank down next to him.

 

Dean dropped the crutches to the floor with a clatter and reached for Sam’s face, studying the eye carefully.  “Poker again?” he asked softly.

 

Sam nodded, still trying to breathe through the nausea. 

 

“Yeah, that seems to be a favorite,” Dean’s voice went distant.

 

Sam met his eyes, familiar, unspoken memories passing between them, before they turned back to the TV, silently giving each other time to regroup.

 

“So,” Dean said slowly after a few moments, “she keeps saying she’s embarrassed,” he filled Sam in on the show.  “About the kid I think, I don’t know.”

 

Sam made a face.  “Dude, ‘embarazada’ means ‘pregnant,’” he sighed.

 

“Seriously?” Dean asked, eyebrows raised at another false cognate’s betrayal.  “Huh.  Well, that makes more sense,” he admitted, nudging a nearby Gatorade toward Sam’s hand as he grabbed his beer and settled back against the cushions.

 

Sam shook his head with a good-natured huff as he took the Gatorade and sat back a little further on the couch.  “So, Maricela is Ricardo’s wife?” he asked, grimacing around a swallow of the drink.

 

“Yeah.  Caliente, no?” Dean waggled his eyebrows. 

 

Sam snorted back a laugh, easing another sip of liquid down his raw throat.

 

Dean reached for the remote with a grin and turned up the volume as the flashback ended and the story continued.  “Okay, Professor, show me what you got.”

 

He and Sam fell into a comfortable, practiced rhythm, tossing in translations as they knew them and puzzling out rapid-fire sentences and unfamiliar vocabulary together.  When all else failed, they just made things up using traditional soap opera story lines, cracking up when they actually seemed to get it right.

 

As the episode wound to a close, Ricardo, having found the identity of the man who fathered Maricela’s child, sat alone in his dark apartment, loading a pistol over a brooding monologue.  But when Sam spoke up, it wasn’t in translation - his voice was flat, distant….as if someone else were speaking, or he was remembering a private conversation.  “ _I think, maybe, that’s why we’re cleaning our guns_ ,” he murmured.

 

Dean stiffened, immediately drawn back to the table where Sam’s weapon lay in pieces.  He closed his eyes with crushing understanding.

 

“Atta boy, Sammy,” Lucifer praised from behind the couch.

 

Dean knew exactly whose words those were - the widening eyes and stiff posture told him everything.  Dean didn’t know how much was Sam, and how much was Lucifer’s sick urging, but Dean knew enough about suicidal ideation to realize that the same weapon used to fight could just as easily be turned to end the fighter.  Hell, Bobby had a voicemail _full_ of just how much Dean understood.  A thought Dean suddenly found himself sharing, his own voice a monotone mirror of distant despair as he echoed words from his own private memory against his every intention.  “Already got it covered, Sammy.  When the time comes, we go together.”

 

Their eyes met, and for a brief moment, television, hell, Leviathans, Cas, Lucifer – nothing existed but the two of them.  Maybe it was combinations of Satan and residual brain injury, of narcotics and booze talking, but the words were out there….and it was okay.  Because behind the initial surprise and embarrassment, there was understanding, acceptance, gratitude, and a certain……relief.

 

“Awww, Romeo’s going to follow his Juliet,” Lucifer purred from where he was half-sitting on the top of the couch, playing with Sam’s hair.  “How sweet,” he ran a long strand through his fingers.  “Although really, you’re more Rapunzel.  Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your….”

 

Sam’s arm snapped back, burying his knife into the top of the couch where Lucifer’s thigh had been.

 

“He shut up?” Dean asked after a moment.

 

Sam nodded.

 

“Head still hurt?”

 

Sam winced sharply.

 

Dean silently held out two Percocet and his open beer.  Sam took the meds without a word, tossing them down with a long swallow before handing the bottle back to his brother.

 

Dean nodded, forgoing his own dose in favor of the rest of the beer.  Sam taking the meds was more than relief at…..whatever had just happened.  This was Sam trusting him.  Trusting him to be the big brother again – to stand watch and hold back hell for a few hours.  So Dean pushed past the exhausted despair and fell back into a role as natural as breathing, ready to guard his medicated, vulnerable little brother against Lucifer himself.    Because, yes there was relief in their unintended confession, but not defeat.  They were still fighting. 

 

And would continue to fight until it was time for that final drive.

 

Dean looked back to where Ricardo was breaking into Esteban’s house.  “Dude thinks he’s a freaking ninja,” he scoffed.  “You see the way those lock picks bent?  Like they were made of friggin’….”

 

“….Play-Doh,” Sam finished in unison.

 

Dean shifted his casted leg to brush Sam’s boot with a ‘great minds think alike’ grin.

 

Sam looked over with an indulgent half-smile, and maintained the contact.

 

Lucifer rolled his eyes from his new perch on the edge of the corner table with Sam’s weapon.  Those two thought they had it all figured out – that brotherhood, distraction, and lacerated hands would save the day.  That because they had something ‘special’, it would all work out.  So, he let them – stayed quiet and out of sight, and let them think they could win.  Because torturing Dean was a bonus in screwing with Sam.  And it would just make the end result that much sweeter.

 

Back on the screen, Ricardo put the gun to the adulterer’s head.  “Esta noche, te toca a ti.”

 

A shot echoed through the tinny speakers.

 

And as Sam and Dean relaxed back into the couch, Lucifer could clearly hear the ‘you hear that, you sonuvabitch?’ in Dean’s brief glare at the buried knife.

 

Lucifer sighed.  Such childish bravado.  But he could play that game too, and unlike Dean, _he_ could back it up.  So, with a lazy smile, he rolled one of Sam’s bullets through his fingers and began to sing over the closing credits – letting Sam hear him just long enough for the refrain.

 

“Just the two of us…”

 

Sam closed his eyes with a sigh, hunched down into the couch, and laid his head on Dean’s shoulder.

 

As he watched Dean scoot closer to his brother, Lucifer dropped down to a hum, clicking the bullet against Nick’s ring with an anticipatory grin as he waited for the flinch.

 

And tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter when it never came.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Ricardo’s line translates as, “tonight, it’s your turn.” Please excuse any translation errors – I’m a bit out of practice.  
> \- The song Lucifer is singing is “Just the Two of Us” by Bill Withers. Like “Supernatural”, I do not own this song.


End file.
